FUNdamental Skill Check

My wife and I attended a concealed carry introduction at a local gun range recently. We have had permits for over 10 years, but there's never any harm learning about updates to the laws in your state or just being reminded about what you can or can't do, should or shouldn't do, etc.

Obviously, the last 20 minutes or so of the class was a presentation of the courses the range teaches. One was based on shooting a business card in half, and ultimately costs a fair amount of money.

The setup: Using a knife, you cut a slit in a piece of cardboard backing, slip the card into it, and start shooting at it. FYI, the range sets the distance between 5-7 feet, typical close encounter distance for self-defense.

The takeaway: Shooting at the edge of a business card, to the exclusion of the rest of the target, is a remarkable way of focusing on what you and the gun are doing. My wife and I went shooting yesterday and tried it with our daughter and a friend of hers. In just a few minutes, with a single magazine, both split their cards. Neither are exceptionally good shooters, but they realized how all they saw was the business card. And they had FUN doing it.

Sometimes the targets we shoot give us too much to shoot at, resulting in shots all over the target. You need to become a "paper waster," just shooting a small portion of the paper and leaving the rest untouched!